Coloring
by Myst Knight
Summary: Part of the Starcrossed Popstar series. Kirby gets some painting lessons from Adeleine, and with his new talent, has something to show her too. Kirby/Adeleine.


**Coloring**

 **By Myst Knight**

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Disclaimer: Kirby's Dream Land is owned by Nintendo and HAL Laboratories. I write this without consent, and am making no money off of it.

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Character Expose: Adeleine

She is the young artist who resides on Pop Star, famous for her etchings that fly off the canvas and come to life. Although she is frequently turned against Kirby via Dark Matter's possession, at heart Adeleine is a sweet, helpful girl. She has changed her look over the years; before she was known as "Ado" and had a shorter haircut. She is also a bad fighter.

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The stubby spires of Castle Dedede peaked above the equally dwarfish walls of the main courtyard, like rook pieces on a chess board. The courtyard was alive with the same wild arches and flowers that covered the outside. The king had long ago moved his fortress from Mt. Dedede to Green Greens, representing his more amicable attitude towards the citizens of Dreamland these days. It was still secluded enough to make for a prime location for budding artisans to practice their skills, and this artist was no different.

The young artist Adeleine tended to her canvas with a lazy eye, working automatically without any real regard for the picture itself. The wind drifted through her shoulder length hair, her smock and her skirt, almost as listless as the girl herself. But though she may as well been lounging on the grass beneath her, her strokes remained as steady as the red beret on her head. She was practically painting in her sleep, working off some half-conceived notion from her subconscious.

Suddenly, her eyes flashed open, as if she had just been just shaken awake at 6:00 o'clock in the morning. Adeleine blinked a few times, and finally took a close look at the painting. It was a young, pink puff of a creature, staring winsomely out from the easel with a twinkle in his blue eyes. The creature seemed to beckon unto the beholder with his innocent, yet strong appeal, like all the classic videogame heroes.

Adeleine sighed, as if it was a doodle someone else did. "Another Kirby," she mused to herself.

Then, she tore the painting off the canvas and tossed it onto a large stack of other Kirby pictures, featuring Hard Drinking Detective Kirby, Swashbuckling Conquistador Kirby, and John & Richie's Perfect Kirby. (complete with black stealth suit) Adeleine sighed wearily, finally turning away from her easel to take a short breather, and to stall her quaking heart.

Adeleine had arrived on Pop Star around a year ago, wanting to perfect her craft but not knowing a soul. Despite the girl's awkward appearance (a lanky humanoid among puffy, round creatures), the kind denizens of the land took her in, interested only in a kind person with a magic paint brush. Dreamland's favorite son Kirby was a consistent visitor to her craft, stopping by at least three times a week to view her latest masterpiece. He was an odd, but friendly sort, always called her by the garbled nickname "Ado."

His attentions brought her happiness, but pain as well. Sometimes, she felt as if Kirby was only interested in her artistic ability, and not Adeleine as a girl. ("Ado" sounded remarkably mannish) The young puffball was the nicest young man she had ever known, and she just wanted him to like her, even going as far as to restyle her hair from its original shorter cut. It was true that her art was a large part of who she was, but still...

Adeleine smiled though her sadness, the mere thought of Kirby enough to lift her spirits. In the end, it really made little difference. All that mattered was that she liked him, and because of that, she was happy to draw whatever he wanted to make him happy. She always enjoyed his company, and the special effort he made to see her.

The distinct squeak of clown-like shoes sounded out from behind her, and Adeleine turned behind her with a soft smile to greet the guest. Kirby had arrived right on time, running frantically with his arms flapping about on his sides. It had actually become difficult for Kirby to visit her recently, ever since she had been commissioned by King Dedede for a series of flattering glamor portraits. Although Kirby and the king had recently worked together, there was still a touch of uneasiness between the longtime rivals, and Dedede always kept a suspicious eye on the puff to have sure he wasn't out to steal any food from his stores. (now there's a hypocritical mindset!)

"Hi, Kirby!" Adeleine said, lowering her brush to her side and letting it drip unsteadily onto the grass below her.

"I'm...so tired...and hungry..." Kirby huffed, looking like he just crossed a desert landscape. "Paint me...yummy food..."

She grinned with understanding, and set about the canvas without a word. With swift movements of her watercolor brush, Adeleine produced a succulent strawberry that looked good enough to eat. This was proved in spades as the two-dimensional drawing magically dropped off the drawing board as a real fruit. Kirby wasted no time inhaling the strawberry into his mouth, sucking it down without bothering to even bothering to chew.

"Mmm!" Kirby moaned, somehow tasting the fruit even though it had only spent a nanosecond on his tongue. "Thank you, Ado!" he told her, smiling gratefully at her.

Adeleine nodded repeatedly, glad that she had managed to please him again. "So, what should I draw for you today?" she asked him, putting her free hand on her hip. "I was thinking of doing something primarily in lavender, and I think you'll really like what I have in mind!"

Kirby raised a flipper in response, but was interrupted by a large thudding coming from the Castle Dedede's main chamber, heavy enough to make him lose balance. The Dreamlander fell flat on his face, as the robed penguin King Dedede stormed his way into the garden with an impatient expression upon his beak. "Adeleine, will you have my portrait done by..." he stopped mid-sentence as he noticed Kirby. "What's he doing here?" he demanded roughly, pointing his wing towards the puff as if he were an insurance salesman.

"Oh, Kirby's just here to view my latest works," Adeleine answered politely, wondering why she still had to explain this to the king, since Kirby had been dropping by the estate quite frequently in the one-and-a-half weeks she had been working here.

"Ado's much nicer than you are," Kirby said, rising up to return King Dedede's glare tit-for-tat.

"T-thank you, Kirby," Adeleine stammered, a faint flush coming to her soft cheeks.

"Hmph!" Dedede snorted, folding his arms and turning away from the duo. "State your business and get lost!"

Kirby blinked a few times at the gruff ruler, then shook off his trepetition and turned to Adeleine. "Hey Ado, can ya teach me how to draw?" he asked bluntly, ignoring King Dedede as best he could.

"Huh?" Adeleine stared at him curiously, titled her head to the side. She bent down with her hands on her knees to look at him in the face. "You want...to be an artist?" she asked, searching his face for anything out of the ordinary.

"Yeah," Kirby nodded, his expression unchanging. "I gotta picture that I wanna do, but I wanna be more like you first. I gotta get good. Will ya teach me?"

"Oh, Kirby, I'd love to become your painting instructor!" the girl gushed, rushing over to Kirby and pumping his hand (and subsequently, his entire body). "I've always wanted a pupil to teach the craft to! You don't know how happy this makes me!"

"W-wah!" Kirby gurgled, his feet kicking rapidly at the girl pulled him off his feet with surprising strength.

"This is an outrage!" Dedede declared, stomping up to the duo in a flurry of red robes. "I'm not going to have Kirby here 24/7! As the owner of this castle, I demand that you, Adeleine, cease your fraternization with..." He stopped mid sentence as he lowered his noggin to regard his foot, which was currently crumpling the large stack of Kirby doodles. "What is this crap?!" he growled, shaking the appendage as if it had landed in dog droppings.

"King Dedede, be careful!" Adeleine cried, flailing her arms wildly as she and Kirby regarded Dedede with concern. "You can't crinkle those drawings without repercussions!"

"Feh, we have an ironing board in the castle," Dedede waved her off, "All we have to do is...wha?" The penguin king's halted as he felt something stir from beneath him. He blinked in forward, right before he was thrown head over heels onto the grass. He rolled around for a moment, trying to get his bearings, but found his effort were for naught as the 2D Kirby doodles all leapt form their paper confinements and begin to bounce upon the hapless ruler.

"They just don't make Pep Brew like they used do," Detective Kirby groaned, sloshing his beverage drunkenly.

"I claim this island in the name of the Queen of Ripple Star!" Conquistador Kirby declared, planting a flag into Dedede's noggin.

"Yeah, I'm the greatest, YEAH!" Perfect Kirby hollered, firing off twin handguns like a crazed cowboy.

Adeleine sighed sadly. "I told you," she said, lowering her head in admonishment.

"Get out!" Dedede roared, spasming wildly underneath the Kirby doodles. "Both of you GET OUT!"

"...O-kay, see you on Thursday," Perfect Kirby droned in a remarkably deadpan voice.

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Thus, Adeleine was fired from her job as King Dedede's artist-for-hire. It didn't matter much anyway, for she now had a new challenge; training a hopeful protege, Kirby. The two met nearly every day in front of Kirby's domed domicile, setting up shop in the shade of a large tree rooted alongside the house. Kirby would often bring snack fruit from the neighboring forest, and they took on the role of teacher and student at a relative ease.

Adeleine acted as a firm, but gentle hand to steady Kirby's developing artistic talent. She pretty much had to start from scratch, as the extent of his current ability lie in passionate but ultimately sub par scribbles and stick figures. She insisted that he boycott the Paint Ability procured from Cameleoarm, claiming that he could only get better by working off his own talent. Her steady grip on his flippered arm guided him from basic strokes to more complicated mixings of color and lighting.

And slowly, Kirby began to improve. The Dreamlander was extremely imaginative and creative underneath his lighthearted exterior, and Adeleine's tempering was bringing it to the forefront. More important was that Adeleine's spirit began to improve as well. Sharing her hobby with Kirby was sharing her soul, and the young artist had never been happier.

It was a bright, flowery spring day when Kirby dragged Adeleine out of her dwelling, hauling her by the hand halfway across Dreamland. "Come on, it's over here!" he said, laughing with childlike glee. Adeleine giggled as well, simply due of the contagious nature of Kirby's happiness. Whatever this surprise was, he sure was excited about it.

Kirby all of a sudden jerked to a stop, causing Adeleine to nearly stumble over him. As they gathered their breaths, the girl stared around her at her current surrounding. "Your house, Kirby?" she asked him, her eyes momentarily flickering to the easel set up under the tree. "Why are we here?"

But Kirby had already left her side, walking over to the easel, which Adeleine finally noticed was covered with a large tarp. He waved his little flippers with excitement, and the girl slowly inched her way to the canvas, completely in the dark about this mysterious thing of Kirby's. Once she was within three feet, Kirby grasped onto the tarp with a excited smile. With a grand flourish, he unveiled his masterpiece, and Adeleine nearly sucked in a lungful of air though her teeth.

Bursting out in a conflagration of color was the image of Kirby and Adeleine, holding hands amid a sea of flowers. The girl was shocked at how she was represented in the pic; the paint-and-ink Adeleine was starry-eyed, windwhipped, and altogether very girly looking. The quality of the pic was quite a few notch up from his earlier; there was a fine sense of shading and proportion. From a technical standpoint, It was almost as good as the "Save the Queen" image, but this time, it wasn't just the skilled strokes that shook her to the core.

"Kirby..." Adeleine said, putting a hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp. "Is this...how you see me?"

"Well, yeah!" Kirby said, rubbing the back of his 'head' bashfully. "You're really nice and pretty, and I wanted to show how much I like you for a long time now."

Adeleine was nearly moved to tears, and she struggled to contain her joy. She felt her heart dance like a street performer, and her knees were giving out fast.

"Aw, you sweetie!" she squealed, diving at him with an embrace that knocked the little puff off his feet.

"Ado!" Kirby cried, putting his own arms around her.

Adeleine pulled back a bit from Kirby to look him in the face, shaking her head and smiling. "Call me Adeleine," she told him, a strange twinkle in her ocean-blue eyes. "It sounds more feminine."

With that, she fell upon the young Dreamlander with a kiss that ensnared his mouth like a closing rose bulb. Kirby's eyes widened a moment at the loving gesture, but soon felt himself returning the kiss, rubbing his hand against the side of Adeleine head as if she were a kitty cat. They kissed and hugged for a few moments more before Adeleine broke the liplock with a smack like ticker tape. "It tastes like clovers," she sighed, and Kirby nodded in agreement.

The two haphazardly helped each other to their feet, stumbling and giggling like two lovelorn dance partners with no talent for the waltz. And with clasped hands, they walked towards Kirby's house, ready for a tasty Maxim Tomato and a friendly chat about, art, food, and love.

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'Fin


End file.
